RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryolmsted/2012/05/25/lets-not-forget-what-memorial-day-weekend-is-really-all-about-the-high-cost-of-freedom/

I’ve gotten tons of press releases in the past few weeks pitching stories on steaks, cookbooks and barbecue accessories, reminding me that Memorial Day weekend is the start of “grilling season.” Likewise I’ve gotten sun-related pitches reminding me that Memorial Day weekend is the start of “beach season.” I’ve also gotten pitches tied to the Indy 500 car race, the world’s largest single day sporting event, always held on Memorial Day weekend (unless it rains). Elsewhere in the world of sports, the Senior PGA Championship is being played this weekend in Michigan.

Grilling burgers? Going to the beach? Sports on TV?

Memorial Day is about none of these things.

It is a Federal holiday honoring members of the United States Armed Forces who have died in war or while otherwise serving their country. Our country. It began as Decoration Day following the Civil War, because the living would honor the dead by decorating their graves. This tradition endures, especially at military cemeteries like Arlington National Cemetery where an American flag is placed on every single grave. In non-military cemeteries the fallen are likewise honored, usually by friends and relatives, but anyone is free to pay their respects to those who made the greatest possible sacrifice so that the rest of us can continue to do what we enjoy doing. The traditional time to visit cemeteries or war memorials is at 3PM local time on Memorial Day, which is Monday. U.S. flags will be flown at half-mast until noon. According to the US Government’s website, you can also “Pay tribute to the U.S. men and women who died during military service by observing a minute of silence at 3:00 PM, local time.”

http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2012/05/25/a-revolutionary-betrayed-the-story-of-william-alexander-morgan/?print=1

Here’s a suggestion for Memorial Day reading, if you’re going to a beach or simply resting in your backyard enjoying the good weather. Buy the May 28th issue of The New Yorker (yes, I know it usually is knee-jerk leftist when it comes to politics), which features an amazing article by author David Grann called “TheYankee Comandante: A Story of love, revolution, and betrayal [1].”

Grann’s reportage is so good that you will think you are reading good fiction — either a thriller or an adventure story — except that he is telling the very real story of the late William Alexander Morgan, who, as a young man in his 20s, went off to Cuba in 1957 to fight alongside Fidel Castro and his rebels in the guerrilla army seeking to bring down the regime of Fulgencio Batista, the long-ruling authoritarian and corrupt leader of Cuba. I hope that someone gets this article to Andy Garcia and that this Cuban-American exile actor considers optioning it for a film before someone else does.

  http://www.romirowsky.com/11757/palestinian-refugees-forever Palestinian identity is founded in on three parts. One is that resistance to Israel is permanent and holy. Another is that Palestinians are, individually and communally, refugees, made so at the hands of Israel. The third part is that the world, specifically the United Nations and Western countries, must support these refugees until […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/301075/facebook-caliphate-mark-steyn  So how’s that old Arab Spring going? You remember — the “Facebook Revolution.” As I write, they’re counting the votes in Egypt’s presidential election, so by the time you read this the pecking order may have changed somewhat. But currently in first place is the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi, who in an inspiring […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/301071/christie-not-one-us-andrew-c-mccarthy New Jersey could do much worse, but he is not conservative. I feel something washing over me. I’m standing in New Jersey, so it’s probably red ink. No, wait a minute — it’s glowing ink! It could only be one thing: more conservative hagiography about the Garden State’s GOP governor. Chris Christie is so […]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=271380

The latest – and loopiest – ‘peace’ formula advanced by the former head of the security services is… submission in slow motion.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me – A proverb of disputed origin

Stupid is as stupid does – From the movie, Forest Gump

There is something about the discourse on the Palestinian issue that seems to induce the total evaporation of the mental faculties of otherwise ostensibly intelligent human beings.

Perplexing questions

How else can we explain the occurrence of so many perplexing – and vexing – phenomena? For example: Why is it that the feasibility of Palestinian statehood has been repeatedly disproven, but somehow never discredited – and certainly never discarded? How can it be that the land-for-peace formula has been undermined neither by the accumulation of past failures nor the accumulating evidence of its future implausibility? What makes any professed Zionist advocate a policy whose prospects for success are so slim and whose chances of ruinous failure so great?

Why do so many, who purportedly endorse rationality in human behavior, embrace such irrationality in their political credos?

But even more disturbing questions as to the conduct and motives of adherents/advocates of Palestinian statehood and the landfor- peace formula arise from their determined denial of the failure of their dogmatic doctrine and the devastation that endeavors to implement it have wrought.

http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/3065/counting-palestinians Senator Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) has offered an amendment to the FY 2013 funding bill for the State Department that would require the Department to provide two numbers to Congress: 1) the number of Palestinians physically displaced from their homes in what became Israel in 1948, and 2) the number of their descendants administered […]

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1945 Israelis and Rahel Attias More deaths in Israel have been caused by car accidents than by war and terrorism put together. So trite is this by now that it’s become a macabre joke, as well as the focus of Knesset committees and private organizations. Indeed, we mothers often wonder which milestone deserves a greater […]

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/19823-Palestinian-Propagandizing-Of-American-Children.html Palestinian Propagandizing Of American Children For those of you who, like I, enjoy “world music” it is saddening that a major venue in San Diego which largely targets children is sponsoring pro-Palestinian propaganda from a virulent anti-Israel, anti-US group operating under the misleading name Middle East Children’s Alliance, actually an activist anti-US, anti-Israel group. […]

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sharpe/120525 What have the United States, China and Israel in common? You may be surprised at the answer. But first, compare their respective populations. The U.S has a population of some 313 million people. China has 1.4 billion. Israel, on the other hand, has a population of only 7 million and its landmass is microscopic […]